Bookish Tuesday: What Does it Take

What does it take for you to finish a book that you've started? The past two books that I have read have sucked me in easily enough and when that happens, it doesn't take much prodding to take the book to completion.

On the other hand, the book that I'm currently reading (Case Histories by Kate Atkinson) has turned out to be quite good here at the halfway point, but I really had to struggle at the beginning. It made sense once things got going, but the beginning of this book seemed to be just a series of stories told one after another.

The main reason that I kept going was because of the recommendations for it. I'm glad that I kept going, because it has been very rewarding so far. However, I'm not sure what the difference is between this book and others that I've started and never finished.

I've had similar situations with other books that have come on strong recommendations (I'm looking at you A Confederacy of Dunces) that I've enjoyed, but for some reason could never finish. Other books (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell) sound like an awesome idea, but the writing style was just so boring that after 100 pages of slogging, I just quit.

At what point should I give up? I know that at some point I'll have to go back and finish Dunces, but that's because I liked it enough. Should I give a book all the way until the ending before I decide that it wasted a week of my life, or can I decide at the point that I can barely finish a page before falling asleep?

The sad thing is, I know how much better written the abovementioned books are than say... Twilight, but at least the Twilight series was able to suck me in (pun intended).

Movie Monday: My Name is Bruce

If you don't know Bruce Campbell, I'm sorry for you. If you do, then you (like all people) are in love with him.

It's okay to admit. No one will look down on you for loving BC. In fact, you will become highly regarded by everyone you know.

With this in mind, My Name is Bruce is a silly Bruce Campbell movie. It is directed by BC and it shows. From what I know, he's only directed one other feature (The Man with the Screaming Brain), but has also directed a number of Xena and Hercules episodes. The same sort of camp that follows Bruce everywhere is present in this movie, but because it is so self-aware (it's about a town calling Bruce for help... and not his character, but actually Bruce) I think it really sets itself apart.

Yeah the dialogue is cheezy and the plot is non-existent, but that's what I expected. All I wanted to see was Bruce Campbell making snide remarks and acting silly, and I got exactly what I wanted.

There is really no reason to rent/buy this unless you like Bruce Campbell and/or B-Movie awesomeness, but if you like either of those, it's pretty great.

On opposite ends of the spectrum, I watched Memento for the first time in about 5 years over the weekend. It's a phenomenal movie. So if you get anything out of this post, it should be to go watch Memento again... and then watch My Name is Bruce to wash it down.

Religion Friday:

You know, there are just some days where nothing really comes to you. I've spent all day today (and even yesterday, since I didn't have time to write, but had plenty of time to think) trying to figure out something new to talk about today.

Turns out, I drew a blank.





But that led me to something interesting... Why do I spend so much time trying to find something new to talk about, when all my old stuff still isn't figured out yet? Yeah, that doesn't help much since most of these weeks tend to be the same thing over, but maybe one day I'll have something concrete to discuss.

That's my main problem with (my) faith. I always have such a problem just finding something to talk about and without that basis, I get my discussions lost very easily.

So at some point here, I'm going to need to just make a list of topics and go through them one by one, even if I have no real answers. Any suggestions?

Bookish Tuesday: The Road

I've been surrounding myself with post-apocalyptic media quite a lot recently. Watching the Jeremiah TV show, playing through Fallout 3, reading The Hunger Games (which, by the way, I breezed through 300 pages to finish last Tuesday if that says how much I enjoyed it), playing Left 4 Dead... I could go on. Anyway, I added on to this by reading The Road this weekend.

I've not read anything else by Cormac McCarthy, but the first thing I had to learn while reading The Road was that the style takes a bit of time to get used to. There are no chapter structures and time jumps around in between paragraphs, plus there is no use of quotation marks so I had some trouble trying to find out who was talking. Both of the main characters are nameless (referred to only as the man and the boy) and while it could also be confusing, I thought that it helped to add to the brokenness of the world around them.

The man and the boy are a father and son who live in a world that is devoid of nearly all life. It is never explained what exactly happened, but the world is left covered in ash and the characters spend the book travelling south through the former USA. There is no clear goal in mind during their travels, and the entire book seems to be a story of futility.

The relationship between the man and the boy is incredibly well written with the love that the man has for the boy showing in nearly every action and decision that he makes and even though their conversations are minimal and rare, more can be gleaned from what is not said than from what they actually talk about.

I will say that after finishing the book, I felt a little frustrated with everything that happened (or didn't happen), but after having most of today to digest, I really like it. The little glimpses of human life that you see during the man and the boy's travels are enough to see what has become of the world and the discussions of hope are enough to keep me going even after the book ends.

The Road has been adapted to a film that will be released later this year starring Viggo Mortenson (Aragorn, if you will) as the man. While I normally whine and complain about adaptations, I really think that this book could be done well as a film. If they keep well to the restrictive use of dialogue and action of the book, I think it could be an amazing character piece. Although, we'll only know for sure when the movie comes out later this year.

Movie Monday: I Love You, Man

I like Paul Rudd and Jason Segel. Both are funny in their own separate movies (I liked Role Models and Forgetting Sarah Marshall), but I really think they are a lot better together.

The plot of the movie is predictable and therefore forgettable and even though I honestly can't remember a scene that really stood out, I know that I laughed enough to make it worth my while. I don't know if that can justify this as a good movie, but it would definitely be worth a rental.

On this subject, what makes a movie worth seeing in theaters? Most of the time comedies work just as well, if not better, at home where there aren't idiots talking, texting, and laughing at the wrong parts. But every once in a while, I like to see a funny movie on the big screen because it also seems to make it funnier. Having the screen take up your entire vision and the audio all around helps to get into the experience and tends to make me enjoy it more.

Other movies, like big dumb action movies, almost require a theater screening just so that you can let the explosions bust your ear drums. Comedies though... I'm just not sure. I'll continue to go see a good comedy in theaters a few times a year, but I don't know if I'll really go too much out of my way.

See I watched I Love You, Man in theaters on Friday and then Robocop at home on Saturday, and thinking about it made me really wish it could have been the opposite. Am I right? I can think of a bunch of good comedies that I saw in theater, but I can also think of the same number that could have waited. What say you?

Religion Friday: Talking about Me

A lot of the scholarship and school applications that I've been filling out lately require you to write an essay about yourself and your faith. Now considering how much I like to write about myself here on this blog, you might not believe it, but those essays are frustrating and hard.

For one thing, it is really hard to boil my life and faith down to a three to five page essay, even with just hitting the highlights. Also, it is hard to structure life itself into a cohesive paper format. As you may have noticed, my blogs tend to ramble and get off subject pretty easily - just like me.

When I try to write out all this stuff into an essay that I hope will bring me money to fund my schooling, I always feel that it falls apart.

So, what is the problem with trying to piece all of this together? Part of it lies in the idea that I want my life to sound exactly like they want for the scholarship, just so that I can win, but I think it is more than that.

I think what it comes down to is the inability to produce faith as a linear progression throughout life. Faith tends to move and jump, progress and regress, duck and weave, abbott and costello (okay, too far)... but I think you know where I'm going. Is it hard for you to put down your faith story into a cohesive narrative? Maybe it's just me.

Now as I go back to writing these papers, I'm wondering how I can justify my journey of faith as a nonlinear object and still make it understandable.

...I also think I'm being a bit obtuse, but that's just because I don't like to write essays.

World News Wednesday: Bats in Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!

After last week's pretty heavy topic, I thought it would be a bit nicer to go slightly easier today.

Poor, poor Mr. Batty.

That is all.

Bookish Tuesday: The Hunger Games

After weeks of gorging on David Sedaris books, Katie was able to stall me from rereading Watchmen for the umpteenth time by going on about The Hunger Games. After she finished it over the weekend, I picked it up and have been reading through at a fairly steady pace.

I tend to like Young Adult novels like this because they don't try to act smart, they just go with the story and try to make it fun and interesting... even if the plot might not make the most sense. The Artemis Fowl series and the Bartimaeus trilogy in particular are a couple of my favorites.

As for The Hunger Games, I like that there isn't much time wasted in setting up the story. Instead of a 60 page build up for the plot (like how Jurassic Park takes 100 pages to get to the island), this book starts off fast and has yet to really slow down. Since I'm not finished (or even to the halfway point), I can't say too much for how the plot resolves itself, but I do know that it is supposedly part of a trilogy (like all books now) and that I'm interested enough to keep up with the series.

The book takes place in a post-apocalyptic North America where the twelve different districts of the current government are forced to offer up a boy and a girl into a competition to the death, just as a way for the government to show who really has power. Like I mentioned before, I'm not far enough to say too much about the plot, although I do know that Katie spoiled parts of it for me while reading it, but that's okay.

Anyway, I know that it wasn't a planned reading for this year, but I'm glad that Katie recommended it, and I'm ready to get back to reading tonight... well that and playing Peggle on my 360.

Movie Monday: Run Fatboy Run

I love Simon Pegg. I'm sure that has been made evident by my drooling over Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead (multiple times), but outside of him being directed by Edgar Wright and slapped with Nick Frost at his side, I never knew how well he'd do.

Turns out quite well. Run Fat Boy Run was a pretty solid romantic comedy. There was enough funnies to keep me entertained and enough sappiness for someone who prefers that aspect. Part of this could have been that the script was written by both Pegg and Michael Ian Black (who I also find to be a funny guy), but I'm sure a large portion of my enjoyment came from my huge man-crush on Pegg.

Aside from this, I went in for my second Watchmen viewing last night and I have to say that it was even better the second round. I'm sure a lot of this came from me not wasting so much energy trying to analyze and see what was changed. I'm still one of the few people who prefers the squid ending from the book, but the movie ending works well within the confines of their plot. I also agree with the arguments that it is tons better that we got this faithful adaptation rather than some half-done piece of crap.

I'm really waiting to see the director's cut complete with Tales of the Black Freighter cut into it, so that it's a full 4 hours long (like the extended LOTR movies).

Anyway, Simon Pegg + Watchmen = good movie weekend.

Religion Friday

It's official. I found out last week that I was accepted into seminary at the Candler School of Theology. And that's also why I didn't post. The whole thing I had written was about waiting and being frustrated (which I still was, since it took an entire month before I heard from them), but it didn't really work, so I scrapped it. Now, I just have to scrape up enough money to be able to attend school.

Anyway, on Wednesday I had to do a little devotion at our church fellowship supper and I talked about how I feel like I've been stuck within my own Lent season of waiting ever since I graduated from college. It's like I have been wandering through the wilderness for four years with no clear direction and Easter way out of reach.

When I started applying for grad school last year, it was like something was beginning to change. Even though I still have no clear direction for where I want to end up, I finally think that I'm moving somewhere.

And with that, I think that it was fitting for me to receive this news during Lent, because while it can be a painful time of meandering as we wait for the glory of Easter, we have that glimpse of the joy to come that we can hope for. While the Easter may never really be understood, we know that it is what we have been waiting for. It becomes a time of celebration. Not only of the Resurrection of Christ, but also of our own rebirths. Those times where it seems that everything can start anew.

So even though I'm sure once classes start I'll go back to complaining about something, at this point I feel ready for something new. I'm definitely ready for Easter.

Gaming Thursday: Too Human

Now Silicon Knights previous title Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is not only one of my favorite games of the last generation, but it's up there in the top games of all time. With that in mind, I was heartbroken when the reviews started coming out for Too Human last year ranging from mediocre to bad. I had played a bit of the demo and found it pretty good, but I was hoping that the full game would live up to something more.

After waiting for a few price drops, I picked it up for $20, and thank God that I didn't pay any more. I remember hearing someone talking about the game on a podcast and mentioning that the only good way to play it was online co-op, because it was like talking on the phone, except your fingers had something to do and you had something to look at. I've played about 15 minutes of the single player experience, and I know exactly what he was talking about, its frustrating and annoying as hell to play by yourself, but after playing through the entire game now with my brother.... at least then I had someone to share in my misery.

It's not that anything in the game is "bad," it's just that nothing really comes together well. You are supposed to be excited about all the awesome loot that drops from the bad guys and keep upgrading yourself to show all your sweet armor and weapons, but after entering into the menu for probably the 50th time, we decided to only upgrade our stuff about once an hour. Combine that with the fact that the game is so repetitive (I swear there were only about 4 different types of bad guys) and that the controls become so wonky when you are trying to fight a group of baddies that I probably could have played the game with my eyes closed most of the way through.

And then there is death. There are no consequences for dying... aside from having to watch the same 2 minute animation every single time. I'd rather take an experience or gold deduction than have to sit through that stupid thing again. The problem with this is that I died so much. I created a bio-engineer, which was supposed to be the healing class in the game, but he has only one heal that can only be done about once every five minutes. It wound up being completely pointless. Dan was a berserker, which supposedly was a damage/tank class, but since there is no way to control aggro, they would as often attack him as run past and come to me.

On the plus side, my laser cannon kicks all kinds of ass.

World News Wednesday: A Hard Story

N'Gai Croal (now formerly) of Newsweek's Level Up blog tweeted this article as an example of what will be missing as print journalism dies. Warning: the story is very emotional and may cause the reader to shed tears.

My only input into this article is why can't we have sensors installed into the back for car seats? I understand the liability argument in a sense, but does that not also apply to seat belts and airbags? If they find defects there, the product is recalled, why would this be different? Yes, it is a child's life at risk and that makes it infinitely harder to place your product into the hands of the masses if you think that something could go wrong, but I think the rewards would help outweigh these risks.

As for the story itself, I know how easy it can be to become distracted and forget something (I've left my lunch at home too many times to count) and on that it is hard to pass judgment on those who have made the mistake. The article does well at showing the struggle that the people have gone through after their situation, and while it might be biased towards them, I find it hard to find fault with the argument that their own pain is more punishment than someone could force them to go through in prison.

Am I wrong for siding with the article? Should these people face punishment from the law? Is there something I'm not taking into account here? What say you?

Bookish Tuesday: Watchmen

Widely recognized as the best comic/graphic novel, and even on the list for Time magazine's Top 100 novels, Watchmen made it into my life around my senior year of high school. Although I liked the story, I don't think I really understood what was going on until my second read a couple years later. Ever since then, I've read Watchmen a number of times, and each time brings something new.

So, what makes Watchmen different from other comics? Part of it is the heroes and their flaws. Only one of these heroes is actually superpowered, but even he suffers from his disconnection to the human race and emotions. Alongside him, Rorschach (the main protagonist) is a sociopath, Nite Owl is a fat retiree lost in his past, Silk Spectre is trying to escape her past, the Comedian is dead, and Ozymandias thinks he can bring world peace.

When you add the characters into the wonderfully twisted plot, it turns into an incredibly layered, multi-point of view experience. It is a story that can't really be told in any other medium. With the running side plots that don't seem to fit until everything is drawn together, it's hard enough to get all of it into this twelve issue arc (side note: I don't fault the movie for not having everything within, they did a great job with everything that they were able to fit into the movie and it would have been a jumbled mess if they had tried to get everything in).

The book also brings to light questions about our ideas of justice, truth, sanity, war and hope. Simply put, I think Watchmen should be a choice in the required reading for college freshmen English. It would provide plenty of discussion topics for an entire semester of classes, and could even be tied in to different situations occurring throughout the world.

Read Watchmen. Please. See the movie too, if you need something to push you towards it, but really... read Watchmen.

Movie Monday: Watchmen

Straight off the bat, sorry for not posting on Friday, I had a nice depressing post about disappointment, when I realized it just wasn't in any way true or on point, so I scrapped it. On the other hand, I got accepted into the MDiv Program at the Candler School of Theology, so yay. Now, on to the good stuff...



I'm going to try to focus on the movie today, since tomorrow will be about the original comic. As it stands after my first viewing, Watchmen is a good movie. Not a great movie but not a bad one either. It's definitely a bit too long, and could have served from another rewrite in certain areas, but overall it does well.

While I think that the length could have been easily fixed by them making it into a nice 12 part HBO miniseries, what the movie had going for it was that it did well in keeping tight to the story. However, this was also part of the bad side too. By sticking so hard to the story, it was able to appeal to the fanboy in me, but it also felt to drag down in unnecessary parts. By trying so hard to stay true to the source material, it kept making me think why certain parts were in and others were out.

That being said, my main fear in the making of this movie was realized, and that is what really disappointed me. The violence exists in the comic, yes, but it is in very short and controlled bursts, that allow it to reach its full effect. In the movie, fight scenes are extended out to be sure to show shattering bones and tons of bloody hits. Yeah, that makes for a good action movie, but that's not what Watchmen is to me.

Alongside this was the (in my opinion) gratuitous sex scene. Yes, they have sex in the comic, but five minutes of thrusting and moaning didn't quite serve to move the plot along very well, when that piece of the plot didn't even seem to be much in focus during the rest of the film.

However, my main fanboy rant has to come with the change in the ending. It's not a bad change, in fact it works within the confines of the movie and maybe it is just because I've read the book so many times that it has become ingrained into my skull, but I really like Moore's ending and it makes perfect sense to me. I know that a big reason for at least part of the change is the "post 9/11 world" that we live in, but I don't see how this change was any different in relation to this, so why not keep it the same, or at least similar?

Those are just the downers though, the rest of the movie holds up really well. I like the choices for Nite Owl II and Rorschach, although I didn't much care for Silk Spectre II, that could just be me. And for all of this nagging, I still would like to see it again to pick it apart one more time, and I will agree with a lot of people that the opening credits sequence was quite possibly the coolest part of the entire film.

However, you can save yourself a lot of trouble with all this, if you just drop $15 and pick up the collection. Now that it's out on film, I'm sure you can find it just about anywhere. It is a fantastic read, but we'll get into that tomorrow.

Gaming Thursday... Kind of

Sorry I haven't updated all week in the normal fashion. I've been sick and while that never really kept me away from the keyboard, it has kept my head pretty muddled and so I haven't been able to compose anything worth reading (not like I ever do anyway).

Anyway, Movie Monday was going to be about Spider-Man 3, which I watched for the first time since theaters while at home sick. Maybe it was the wracking coughs or the fact that I was playing WoW at the same time I watched and therefore only gave it about 30% of my brainpower, but it really wasn't as bad as I remember thinking. Sure, it has some silly parts and a lot of the dialogue is really bad, but put altogether, I don't think it's a bad movie. Maybe I'll give it one more shot with my full attention and a non-fried brain, and we'll see how it holds up. That is, if I can find another 3 hours to sit down and rewatch it.

Bookish Tuesday was going to be about how I ordered tickets to see David Sedaris live this April and wondering exactly what to expect out of that. I love his essays and I've listened to both audiobooks and live performances and have enjoyed them a ton, but I've never been to a "concert" where you go to listen to someone read or tell stories, so I'm definitely hoping it will meet my extremely high expectations.

World News Wednesday would have been about nothing, because I haven't looked at the news all week with everything going on at work and home, so instead of trying to write something intelligent, I would have probably goofed off and written something stupid. Instead of wasting your brain reading it now, I'll give you the opportunity to make up something amazingly stupid that you imagine me to have written. That way we all win (don't question how, just accept it).

Finally, today's Gaming Thursday is about Street Fighter 4. Basically, if you grew up playing Street Fighter 2, it's an amazing game. If you never played SF2, or really couldn't care about fighting games, it's still fun, just not as awesome without all of the nostalgia attached (kind of like the Smash Bros. series). I'm sure once I get some serious time into it, I'll have better and more detailed impressions for you, but for now all I can say is that I love E. Honda (hoot toy!)

There you have it, four posts in one!!! I'll be back tomorrow for real with some religious stuff (well quasi-religious anyway), and next week I'm sure I'll be caught up in all the Watchmen discussions on Monday and Tuesday, so there you have it.